In the production of garments such as brassieres, foundation, and medical support garments it is often necessary to provide specific reinforcement in specific areas of the garment in order to enable the garment to provide a desired support function and comfort to the wearer. Typically the reinforcement is provided by incorporating into such garments separate reinforcement members, e.g. additional differing or similar fabric layers, padding, wires, or shaped foam parts. The use of shaped urethane or similar foam as padding, while accomplishing a desired shape and reinforcement function, can be uncomfortable to the garment wearer in that it impedes air flow and limits or prevents breath ability and moisture escape and can be construed as hot or uncomfortable to the wearer. The provision of separate reinforcement members can also be highly undesirable, as they require a garment to be specially modified according to the vast individual sizes required to accommodate the wearers. This increases the cost of the production of the garment by exponentially increasing the number of different size reinforcement members one must stock, as well as the added number of fabric cutting and sewing steps required. For example, using these existing methods for making an aesthetically attractive high luster satin fabric padded brassiere breast cup with a foam or fiberfill pad support it would be necessary to use a first distinct and separate satin fabric outer face, using either a stretch woven true satin construction or an elastomeric warp knitted Raschel or Tricot satin fabric in addition a second or middle layer, or multiple layers of fiberfill padding, or a shaped foam part, and a third substrate fabric layer for the inside lining of the brassiere cup, all to be precisely cut and sewn together according to a size specific garment requirement. Traditional satin construction fabrics are well known in the trade and historically had their early beginnings in weaving, whereby a high luster smooth face surface is accomplished through the satin class of weaves by floating individual warp or weft yarns of preferably bright luster for a higher number of picks or ends in the weave repeat before interlacing and binding the floats down. Woven satin constructions are typically produced using a minimum of 5 harnesses, and up to 8 harnesses or more, in which case the individual yarn floats are from 4 to 7 ends or picks in length. The woven satin effect is further enhanced by weaving a very high number of ends/picks per inch texture quality in order to produce a smooth, relatively plain looking fabric surface that comprise a satin. A Raschel warp knit satin can be accomplished similarly to the woven approach by utilizing a knit construction that provides long floats on the technical back surface that are crowded together in a dense high courses per inch texture that can further be increased by introducing an elastomeric yarn such as spandex that further compacts and crowds the bright yarn floats into a high density, yielding the best quality satin effect. In the case of weft knitting, and more specifically the technical face side of a single knit fabric construction which is required in the present invention whereby a multi layered spacer fabric composite construction is utilized and therefore has both external fabric surface sides exposing the technical face, there is no possibility to float a bright luster yarn on the surface as can be accomplished on the technical back side. Therefore, a unique knitting method is required to maximize the length of the individual legs of the technical face knitted stitch in such a way as to produce a satin surface result.
Integrally formed multiple layer fabrics are known and have been illustrated, for example, by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,735,145, 5,284,031, 5,422,153, 5,395,684, to Pernick, Stoll et al., Miyamoto, and Robinson et al. respectively The patent to Pernick describes an incontinence mattress pad product made of a multiple layer weft knit fabric specifically for absorbing moisture and wicking it from a first hydrophobic layer to a second hydrophilic layer by using spacer yarns of a preferably non-textured continuous multifilament Polyester. The patent to Stoll et al. describes a multiple layer knitted structure which can be produced on a two-bed, flat bar knitting machine, and which is to include stable fabric webs connecting first and second parallel fabric webs. The patent to Miyamoto describes a weft knit composite fabric for decorating the interior and exterior of buildings, cars, furniture, bags, or the like. The fabric has first and second knitted layers that are tied together by alternating courses of S- and Z-twist yarns. The patent to Robinson et al. describes a double-faced, knitted, glass-fiber fabric, in which the faces are interconnected by at least one linking thread that passes from one face to the other. The linking thread is described as preferably being made of glass fiber. There are no references in any of the aforementioned patents as to the incorporation of a substantially high luster satin knit structure on any of the fabric layers in a multi-layer, weft-knitted, spacer construction. There also are no references to a stretchable, heat-moldable spacer fabric for use in intimate apparel or medical garments.
A general aim of the present invention is to provide a method of producing a single stretchable and moldable spacer fabric substrate that is at once a pleasing high luster satin effect integrally knitted into the outer face fabric surface, a resilient, stretchable, middle-spacer-yarn connecting layer, and an inner fabric lining layer that may be plain, textured or fancy, all formed as one single and homogenous unified structure during the knitting process.